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Tuesday, 11 February 2014

Pack Your Bags: Sprue Cutters Union #28

Greetings Wargamers and Hobbyists, and welcome to the ‘Wanderium’. This rather large hall is where all of our travels are recorded; upon the immense spinning globe...see all the pretty little lights? That small cluster of lights, right there, are the ones we are going to talk about today, as this week, the Sprue Cutters Union members have been asked...

- How far are you willing to travel for this hobby? -

To answer this question fully, I am choosing to categorise my hobby-travels into two areas: planned hobby related travel, and un-planned hobby travel.

My planned hobby travels could be considered both impressive and unimpressive in equal measure. I can't really answer the question in terms of whether I am prepared to travel great distances across deserts, mountains and rolling oceans, because I have never had to. The key events in the Games Workshop hobby calendar for non-tournament gamers are the events at Warhammer World, and Games Day. Warhammer World is in Nottingham, on the south side to boot, which makes it around a forty five minute drive for me to get there. Games Day takes place on the near side of Birmingham at the NEC/NIA (National Exhibition Centre/National Indoor Arena) site, which can't be more than an hour away.

So, impressive in that I basically live in the centre of a fairly major and vibrant gaming area, with some sites of Games Workshop related international pilgrimage within easy (Deep) striking distance, and unimpressive because I have never had to travel all that far to an event. Even the odd forum meet-up I have attended has typically taken place at Warhammer World, because it's a great place to visit and play games, but is also central in the country.

So, to add more interest, let’s have a quick look at 'accidental' international hobby visits.

I am very fortunate to have been able to travel fairly broadly with my wife before our son was born, and during our travels I have 'stumbled' across both Games Workshop stores and indepedent hobby shops in some far flung places. We have sometimes come across stores where I was fairly confident they would be, because we were in a country with a sizeable gaming community and in a major retail area, and at other times rounded a corner to be greeted with a splendid gaming store where I wasn't thinking at all about hobby, along with groans of 'here we go again' from my long suffering wife.

For example, I once bought a Space Marine Strike Cruiser model for Games Workshop's Battlefleet Gothic in a Games Workshop store in Toronto, Canada, where my wife (girlfriend at the time) insisted I buy something, just because of the novelty of being abroad in a Games Workshop store - you can see why I married her of course!

A more unexpected incident occurred in a shopping centre in Penang, off the coast of Malaysia, where whilst out for a walk and browsing the shops, we stumbled upon a games shop which also sold Games Workshop products! Imagine how pleased I was when I was able to purchase the Warhammer 40,000 4th Edition Rulebook in such a place. It gave me something great to read during the remainder of the holiday, and was probably at a discount compared to UK prices to boot!

So there you are. If you are prepared to accept these accidental hobby related purchases made in far flung places, then I have travelled some considerable distance and still had the hobby in mind, even if it wasn't planned. If you are not prepared to accept that, and prefer instead to cry 'cop-out! that's not a hobby trip!', then I say this. I live within an hour's drive of both the Games Day venue and Warhammer World. I'll let that sink in, until next time...

If you would like to read more on this same topic from a variety of viewpoints, please check out the links that other Union Members will be posting in the Topic Hub over on The Combat Workshop. Usually I would be posting links directly to those posts here too, but this week I am first to post!

Finally, if you would like to consider joining the Sprue Cutters Union (#spruecutters), then check out this link for more details. All you need is a blog of your own, and a passion for miniature modelling.

Thanks for reading...

P.S. there will be pics this week! I'm just typing much faster than I'm painting at the moment...